Venezuela Crisis: Is foreign intervention necessary?

Foreign intervention is the use of power of a government of a society to address perceived problems in foreign societies. These interventions aim to establish a better condition or a better state of affairs in these societies, but this is from the point of view of the society intervening. The measures taken by the intervening country can be opposed to what the society that has been intervened want or consider correct. Of course, there are different ways of intervention. A country can intervene on the affairs of another country by soft means, like offering monetary aid, or by harsh means, like a military occupation.

Venezuela has been suffering a crisis for a while now. The crisis has affected the whole country in many ways, innocent civilians have been affected gravely to the point where their basic needs are not fulfilled. More and more people are living on the streets. The country has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, making food and medicine almost inaccessible to most Venezuelans, the GDP has fallen a lot, and the bad conditions have caused massive protests.

The crisis has reached a point where the country´s regime is being pushed to collapse in a strong way, by internal and external factors. The US has announced extensive sanctions against Venezuela´s State-Oil giant, these sanctions seek collapse the regime of Maduro, in favor of the 35-year-old Juan Guaidó “interim president”. The US has also announced that several Venezuelan government accounts of the US Federal Reserve Bank have been handed over to Guaidó, seeking to push the pressure against Maduro even further.

Many people who could have been part of an opposition, intellectuals, and politicians, had fled the country, but now, with Guaidó, the opposition is starting to get unified. Many countries around the world, that have been critical of Maduro, but cautious not to get involved in the domestic issues of a foreign country have voiced their support for Juan Guaidó. The US recognized Guaidó as the new president.

An important thing about the issue with the self-proclaimed interim president is that Venezuela’s military continue to support Maduro. Maybe because their high-ranked officials receive an economic benefit, maybe because they truly support his regime, but they remain loyal to Nicolas Maduro. According to US Admiral Craig S. Faller, “There are a lot of generals of leaders on Maduro´s illicit payroll through illicit drug trafficking, money laundering, and any number of businesses in the oil industry. Maduro has bought their loyalty”.

Recently, the US government announced the decision to send humanitarian aid to Venezuela, this demonstrates the desire to help the country, even though the USA has established many sanctions previously. The fact that Maduro still has the loyalty of the military is stopping the aid to get to the people, as it believes that the participation of the US in a military confrontation in the region could raise. The US has invaded many countries and are used to this type of situations, in which a regime must be taken down. The example is what happened in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

I believe that foreign intervention can solve problems in the short term but causing long term stability problems in the intervened nations is very likely to happen. If the US intervenes in a harsh and more direct way in the Venezuelan situation, like sending men, I think that the problem would become worse for the people in the country, because foreign intervention can have negative social impact.

Right now, the US is supporting Guaidó and the opposition with whatever they need, and believes, as the vice-president, Mike Pence, said, that “it is time for Nicolás Maduro to go”. What the US doing is a good measure, but I think that the US should not go any further in their intervention in the Venezuelan situation. The opposition that has lived and experienced the bad consequences of Maduro´s regime, and that is backed up by many Venezuelans, should continue to work to accomplish their goal and finishing establishing a stable regime.

I believe that Maduro should leave power, but the best way for it to happen would be on a peaceful way. Mike Pence also said to CBS news, that “all options remain on the table in Venezuela”, but that the US hopes that a peaceful transition occurs.